Infrastructure, talent spotting and academies needed to kick-start football revolution in India

ET Bureau|

Updated: Jun 12, 2014, 10.05 AM IST

Football fever soars in Indore. Young soccer players vie for the ball during practice sessions at Nehru Stadium in Indore on Wednesday.

By Tushar Goculdas

Deafening silence at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, India is just a penalty away from qualifying for their first-ever World Cup. The ball is on the spot, the pressure is building, and it's all in or nothing now. The referee blows the whistle, India's striker Aniket Jadhav lines up to take the spot kick...." Every four years, the world comes to a standstill for the world's biggest football event, the Fifa World Cup.

The first kickoff is tonight. In India, about 44 million fans watched the 2010 Fifa World Cup, and that number could rise to 63 million in 2014. Millions called in sick during the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

Indian football fans passionately root for this year's favourites: Spain, Brazil, Germany and Argentina. Many are fans of stars like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suarez and Diego Costa. But amidst all this passion, there's one question that eats up fans of the beautiful game: when will India qualify for the World Cup?

Why should qualifying for the Fifa World Cup matter? Because sporting success plays a role in building national pride and instilling the values of teamwork, discipline, efficiency and productivity that are critical for economic, social and human development. This is borne out in several examples in modern history: Brazil, Germany, Japan and China have leveraged sporting — not always football — success to build national pride to drive social and economic development.

And what better sport to succeed in than football, a team sport that's watched by billions, and Fifa's membership of 209 nations is more than the number of countries in the United Nations?

To bring this footballing dream to life, we need to create a virtuous cycle in four critical interrelated areas: expand the base of young (under 14 years) players across the country; build football infrastructure; create apan-India platform to identify talent through structured youth leagues and tournaments; and build football academies to nurture talent into world-class footballers.

Indian on the Green

Schools provide access, media gives visibility and heroes inspire. These are the biggest drivers to build a base of young footballers in India. While schools and media are playing their roles well, what we need are some inspiring stories of young Indians succeeding in a few major European leagues.

Infrastructural development is a high investment activity that needs public-private partnership to succeed. We have a great opportunity to start this as we prepare to host the Fifa Under-17 World Cup in 2017. As the host, India qualifies automatically. This will be the biggest international football event to take place on Indian soil.

The sports ministry has backed the funding to upgrade stadia and improve facilities. Now we need companies to step in. The upcoming corporate-funded Indian Super League (ISL) could be a turning point in this direction.

The third critical factor is setting up organised youth leagues and tournaments to capture and filter young talent.

The Subroto Cup, now being played across India, is one massive platform for two lakh kids in over 20,000 schools across the country.

Some European clubs are creating opportunities for young footballers to play, with the support of companies. FC Bayern Youth Cup, Arsenal Soccer Schools and Barcelona's famous FCBEscola are the pioneers.

Kick-Start a Revolution

Finally, the pool of players selected through such leagues and tournaments need to be channelled into youth academies, where they are trained to become professional football players. Fifa reports that India has less than half a million registered players with a population of 1.3 billion, while the Netherlands and UK with 16 million and 64 million people respectively, have over a million registered players each. This can be seen as a disadvantage, or positively, as the potential to produce an army of talented players.

Sesa Goa and TFA in Jamshedpur, as well as prominent clubs such as Shillong Lajong FC, Pune FC and Bengaluru FC run successful youth academies, through which many young footballers have gone on to represent state and the national team.

Similar models adapted across all i-League teams and the emergence of the ISL will help groom footballers.

Achieving Goal in 12 Years

With the 2017 Fifa Under-17 World Cup on our pitches, we have the perfect springboard to nurture the next generation for the Fifa World Cup. Over the next 12 years, we need to invest in world-class infrastructure, scout and train top young footballing talent between 8 and 14 years, and ensure we have a team ready to compete on the ultimate pitch of football in 2026.

"...a thunderbolt strike! The ball goes into the top right corner and India is through to the Fifa World Cup! A turning point in our history and the history of the great game."

(The writer is brand director, adidas India. Aniket Jadhav is one of the 10 Under-16 footballers and golden boot winner scouted by Paul Breitner at the adidas-FC Bayern Youth Cup)